Glossary

GLOSSARY

Agger – The consolidated artificial ridge carrying a Roman road.

Amphora – A large two-handled jar with narrow neck and pointed or rounded base, used for storage and carriage of wine, oil, etc.

Andernach Grit – See Niedermendig Lava.

Apodyterium – The room in a Roman bath building set aside for dressing and undressing.

Arretine ware – Red pottery of a kind commonly produced at Arretium in central Italy.

As – Brass or copper coin worth 1/16 of a denarius.

Ashlar – Masonry wrought to an even face and square edges.

Barrow – A burial mound; in the Cotswolds usually a cairn composed of stone rubble. Long Barrow: an elongated burial mound of the Neolithic period; in the Cotswolds usually with one or more chambers. Round Barrow: a burial mound, circular in plan, usually of the Bronze Age.

Bastion – An outward projection from a defensive wall.

Berm – In earthworks, a ledge between a bank and its accompanying ditch or scarp, or a narrow space separating an inner bank and ditch from an outer bank.

Bivallate – With two banks, each with a ditch.

Box tile – A baked clay tile shaped like a rectangular box, open at both ends; often used for flues and occasionally for voussoirs.

Bronze Age – The period when bronze was the dominant metal; in Britain it is dated very roughly between 1800 and 600 B.C.

Cairn – Mound composed of stone rubble.

Calcite-gritted ware – Pottery embodying crushed calcite.

Caldarium – Hot room in a Roman bath building.

Causeway – Length of ground interrupting the course of a ditch.

Cella – The chamber at the centre of a temple.

'Celtic' fields – Small, rectangular fields usually bounded by lynchets, originating in the Bronze Age, but widespread in Romano-British times.

Chi-Rho – Emblem composed of Greek letters chi (Χ) and rho (Ρ), common in early Christian art and epigraphy as abbreviation for Χριστος.

Cist – A grave or small burial chamber without an entrance, lined with stones.

Colour-coated ware – Pottery to which has been applied a thin coating of clay slip, usually red, brown, dark green or blackish in colour.

Counterscarp – The outer face or slope of the ditch of a fortification. Counterscarp bank: a small bank immediately outside the counter-scarp of a hill-fort or defensive work.

Coved – Provided with a concave moulding.

Crop-mark – A trace of a buried feature revealed by differential growth of crops, best seen from the air.

Cross-ridge dyke – A bank and ditch, sometimes a ditch between two banks, crossing a ridge or spur of high ground. Such features are often of the Iron Age.

Currency bar – Iron bar, sword or spit-shaped, probably used as a form of currency before the introduction of coinage.

Cursus – A Neolithic ritual monument comprising a pair of parallel banks with external ditches, often some 200 ft. apart and extending for distances of 500 ft. or more. The banks and ditches are usually returned at right angles to enclose the ends.

Denarius – Roman silver coin in standard use until A.D. 242.

Dupondius – Coin worth ¹/8 of a denarius.

Dyke – A linear earthwork comprising a bank or ditch, or both.

Fibula – A brooch with pin, guard and catch, comparable to a modern safety-pin.

Folles – Copper coins common at the beginning of the 4th century.

Freestone – Limestone of even, fine-grained texture.

Frigidarium – The cold room in a Roman bath building, equipped with cold plunge.

Genius – Guardian spirit or deity.

Genius cucullatus – Hooded deity.

Glacis – In earthworks, a bank and ditch so constructed as to present an unbroken slope from the crest of the bank to the bottom of the ditch.

Grass-tempered ware – Pottery embodying chopped grasses, etc.

Heated room – In Roman or Romano-British buildings, a room heated by a hypocaust (q.v.)

Henge – A round Neolithic or Bronze Age enclosure bounded by a bank, usually with an internal ditch, and having either a single entrance or two diametrically opposed entrances.

Hill-fort – A defensive enclosure, usually of the Iron Age and on dominant ground, fortified with rampart and ditch, single or multiple.

Hollow-way – A sunken track caused either by wear or by the raising of the ground on each side.

Hornwork – An outwork of an earthwork enclosure, such as a hillfort, often consisting of a single bank thrown out to protect an entrance.

Hypocaust – Either a low basement chamber over which a fireproof floor is supported on small pillars (pilae), or a system of channels providing under-floor heating. Both systems were intended to allow the circulation of warm air from an external furnace, the air finally escaping through flues of box-tiles embedded in the walls.

Imbrex – A roof-ridge tile, semicircular in section.

Impost – A moulded stone at the top of a pilaster flanking an opening.

Iron Age – The first period in which iron was the dominant metal; in Britain it dated from c. 600 B.C. to the Roman Conquest, A.D. 43.

Kimmeridge Shale – A soft, fine-grained rock quarried in Dorset in the Iron Age and the Roman period. Manufactured articles include parts of furniture.

Lynchet – A field scarp, usually produced by ploughing. See also Strip Lynchets.

Millefiori glass – Decorative glass formed by cutting slices from bundles of thin multicoloured glass rods, fused together.

Minimi, Minimissimi – Diminutive coins of low value.

Mortarium – In pottery, a stout bowl with a strong lip and a pouring spout, dusted on the inside with hard grit to strengthen it against wear during the pounding of foodstuffs.

Neolithic – Of the later Stone Age; in Britain from about 3400 B.C. to 1800 B.C.

Niedermendig Lava – Lava from the Niedermendig-Andernach-Eifel region of the Rhineland.

Nymphaeum – A place consecrated to nymphs, especially at a spring; commonly a monument placed over a water-source.

Open Fields – Unenclosed fields of mediaeval and later date, usually held in common and cultivated on a strip system.

Opus sectile – Pieces of coloured stone cut to geometric shapes and set together to form a paved floor or wall covering.

Opus signinum – Plaster for walls and floors made of broken pottery or tiles, and lime.

Pilae – Small pillars of stone or tile supporting the floor above a hypocaust (q.v.)

Pilaster – A pier of rectangular section attached to a wall.

Pillow mound – A low mound, usually oblong on plan, but occasionally circular, of mediaeval or later date, probably connected with the rearing of rabbits.

Pit-alignment – A line of pits, apparently forming a boundary, probably in conjunction with the spoil dug from them. See Preface, p. xxvii.

Pitched stone – Rubble foundations of floors or roads, with the stones packed on edge, or slightly inclined.

Platform – In earthworks, a space artificially levelled, often to receive a building.

Plunge-bath – see Frigidarium.

Portico – A porch with a colonnade.

Potin coin – British (or Gaulish) cast bronze coin with high tin content.

Quoin – Dressed stones forming the angle of a building.

Ridge-and-furrow – Remains of cultivation of mediaeval and later date forming a corrugated surface.

Ring-ditch – A ditch of circular or penannular plan. See Preface, p. lv.

Saddle-quern – A prehistoric hand-mill operated by moving an upper stone backwards and forwards upon a lower.

Samian ware – Table pottery of the Roman period, mostly of Gaulish origin, with a glossy surface, generally red in colour; also known as terra sigillata.

Scarp – An abrupt slope, natural or artificial.

Secondary burials – Burial made in a pre-existing barrow or grave.

Sestertius – Coin worth ¼ of a denarius.

Settlement – An area of habitation, perhaps surrounded by associated closes, paddocks, approach ways and other features, which together constitute a complex of earthworks distinct from fields.

Situlate – A term used to describe the form of vessels, chiefly of pottery, with wide mouths, short everted necks, high shoulders and straight sides tapering downwards. The form is characteristic of the earlier phases of the Iron Age in Britain.

Slates – (In this volume) thin slabs of sandstone or limestone used for roofing.

Snake-thread glass – A well-defined series of glasses of Roman date decorated with serpent-like lines or threads of glass, sometimes the same colour as the body, sometimes not. They were made both in the East (probably in Syria) and in the West (Cologne and perhaps elsewhere).

Soffit – The underside of an architectural feature meant to be seen from below.

Soil-mark – A trace of a levelled or buried feature revealed by differences in colour or texture of the soil, usually in ploughed land.

Stater – Coin of gold, silver or bronze; the basic unit of currency in Britain from c. 100 B.C. until replaced by Roman coinage.

Stonesfield slate – A sandy oolitic limestone, occurring in the Great Oolite series, which splits readily into thin slabs suitable for roofing.

Strip fields – Long, narrow fields, characteristic of mediaeval and later open-field agriculture.

Strip lynchets – Long, narrow strip fields (q.v.), set on hillsides and bounded by lynchets.

Stylobate – A continuous foundation supporting a row or rows of columns.

Stylus – A writing implement consisting of a small rod with a pointed end for scratching letters on wax-covered tablets and with a blunt end for obliterating.

Tegula – A flanged roofing tile.

Tepidarium – Intermediate room of moderate temperature in a Roman bath.

Terra nigra or rubra – Table-ware, black or red, imported from Gaul.

Terrace-way – Track cut into the side of a hill.

Terret – Metal loop or ring, one of a set serving as rein guides.

Tessellated pavement – A floor surface of small cubes (tesserae) of stone, tile or glass, either plain or patterned in various colours, set in mortar to form mosaic.

Tessera – A cube of stone, tile or glass, used in mosaic.

Timber-laced rampart – A rampart reinforced by vertical and horizontal timbers tied together.

Torque – A neck-ring of twisted metal.

Torus moulding – A bold convex moulding, generally a semicircle in section.

Tufa (Calcareous) – Stony deposit of sponge-like texture formed as a result of evaporation of water heavily charged with lime.

Univallate – With a single bank and ditch.

Villa – An independent rural establishment of consequence, marked by a building with heated rooms, baths, mosaic pavements or sophisticated architectural details such as columns.

Voussoirs – Wedge-shaped stones or box-tiles forming an arch.